From the bottom-up, the above picture shows:

• Drain hole for the reservoir pocket
  
• Waist belt
• Padded back panel
• Shoulder straps with attached sternum strap
• Drink tube with bite valve (the plastic wrap is still covering the bite valve)
• Drink tube emerging from the reservoir pocket
• Push-button drink tube connection for hooking up to reservoir
• Reservoir

Somewhat visible as lighter vertical bars in the back panel are ribbed or corrugated padding sections for ventilation.  All of the white areas on the back of the pack are padded.  Both the black and white areas are meshed.


Again from the bottom-up:

• Lower black lift strap -- in the photo this appears to have two parallel dashed white lines running through the middle of the strap
  
• Lower front pocket -- not visible inside the pocket are two sleeves (one nylon, one mesh) and 3 elastic hold-downs
• The large main pocket -- not visible inside the pocket are a large sleeve with hook-and-loop closure, two pen/pencil (or maybe tire pressure gauge) sleeves and a small zippered pocket
  
• Two elastic side pockets with enwrapping compression straps
• Small vertical pocket -- not visible inside are two elastic mesh pockets and a mitten-hook on a strap for storing keys
• Circular media port opening into the vertical pocket
• The black strip on the very top of the pack is the main lift strap

Somewhat visible on the photo is the fact that all the pockets have tabbed pull cords on the zippers.  The tabs have a nice grip, and the pockets zipped open and closed with no problems.

The only hassle with this feature is I have some small difficulties in getting the reservoir turned right-side in again.  When I reach in with my hand and grasp the bottom of the bladder it makes my hand a little bit too big to come back out the reservoir mouth:


This is just like the old story of the monkey trap where the simian's hand is too big when grasping the peanuts in the bottom of the jar to extract its hand and the peanut.  This could easily be fixed by making the reservoir just slightly wider, even just at the opening to allow the hand to slip out.  I don't have particularly large hands, so I would expect some folks would have more of an issue with this than I do.  I am able to get the reservoir back in order, it's just a bit of a struggle and I'm concerned that I'll eventually tear one of the reservoir seams.

Ventana Canyon Trail

It had been 2 years almost to the day that I hiked the Ventana Canyon, so it was time to go back.  As I was packing up to go I went to the sink with the reservoir and when I began to fill it the water started draining out of the tube connection port -- oops, when I took it apart to dry after my last hike I must have yanked too hard with the reluctant connection and pulled the fitting with the check valve right out of the reservoir:


Easily fixed, I just inserted the barbed fitting back into the connector and we were good to go.  It does show just how recalcitrant this disconnect is.

It was a bit overcast and early in the morning so the heat was not too bad yet, but with the humidity and the altitude gain I was sweating profusely.  This was one of the few times I did not consume all my fluids, and I paid for it.  By the end of the hike I was quite dehydrated despite consuming over 3 L/qts of water and electrolyte solution.

Other than the connector problem the pack performed flawlessly.

Arizona Trail - Kentucky Camp

There is an historic mining area on the East side of the Santa Rita Mountains that I've wanted to visit for some time, so I headed off to the Kentucky Camp trailhead of the Arizona National Scenic Trail (AZT) early on a Sunday morning.  This is high desert, so the temperatures were substantially cooler than in Tucson, and it must have rained quite a bit the night before because there were puddles along the trail and the ground was still wet, raising the humidity.

I carried my usual complement of hydration fluids, though I figured I wouldn't go through it all, as I was not too ambitious in my hiking, the temperatures were tolerable, and this trail segment doesn't have a big altitude gain.  This section of the AZT traverses the Eastern foothills of the Santa Ritas, but does not attempt anything close to a summit.

The pack performed well, and thankfully I did not see any sign of leakage from the fitting I had the altercation with the prior day.

Cave Creek Trail

This was a backpacking trip, but I wanted to use the Morro gear as much as possible, so I took the reservoir with me in my regular backpack.  While I was removing the drink tube from the Morro pack the mouthpiece broke off the tube:
There seemed to be some residual adhesive on the joint, so I superglued the pieces back together again.  This held fine until the tube caught a snag on some brush on the trail and it re-broke.  I was able to crimp the tube to stop the flow, and could still drink from the system by uncrimping the tube.  Since my glue job did not hold, I'm going to try and contact the manufacturer to see how they want to handle this.

I also noticed on this trip that with the permanent fittings on the drink tube there was no easy way to attach it to my filter system.  Most backpacking hydration systems allow the mouthpiece to be easily removed, and the hose fits right onto a fitting on my filter.  The disadvantage of the Morro system is that I have to fill a bottle, pour it into the reservoir, and repeat three times.  It's only a nuisance, but workable, and probably the right tradeoff for the designer to make as it is not often that I use a day pack with a water filter.

Alamo Springs Trail

On August 23, 2011 I submitted a customer service request to replace my broken mouthpiece.  The next day I was contacted by one of their agents who cordially requested a photo of the broken mouthpiece, which I sent out the next day.  I received a replacement part sometime over the weekend of September 3^rd -- we were out of town for four days so I don't know exactly when it arrived, but it was in my mailbox when we got back into town on September 5^th.  I was a little surprised that they didn't send an entire new drink tube, as I had indicated that I had to crimp the tube to save my water on the Cave Creek trail.  I removed the broken mouthpiece with a pair of pliers (the barbed fitting was a little reluctant to let go) and easily fit the new part onto the tube.  Everything worked well.

It was time for my last test hike with the Hydrapak.  The weather has cooled down a bit, so I returned to the Tortolita Mountains and the Alamo Springs trail to try one more time to find the petroglyphs that are supposedly in the area.  I didn't take an additional bottle with electrolyte; I figured with the lower humidity and temperatures I wouldn't need the additional fluids.  A great hike, but alas, no petroglyphs were found.  The repaired drink tube/mouthpiece assembly worked great, and I returned from my hike well-hydrated.

Summary

The Hydrapak Morro has become the permanent replacement for my 2-bottle lumbar pack for all day hikes longer than 1-2 hours in the desert.

Good Stuff

• Lightweight pack
• Scrunches down nice and small for stowing in luggage (discovered this on our trip to Prescott)
• Durability has been excellent for the pack itself - no failures in four months of use
• Nice touches like the elastic straps to keep excess webbing in place
• Good responsiveness from the customer service folks
  

Improvement Suggestions

• I struggled to find things to stash in the smallest pockets.  The small bottom front pocket is even too small for stowing two snack bars.
• The reservoir mouth could be just a little bit larger to help me get my hand out when restoring the reservoir from an inside-out condition
  
• The drink tube connection to the reservoir is a bit of a struggle, particularly when detaching
• Fragile mouthpiece connection